Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 80689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
We share a laugh, and then I decide we can take our break a little early to share my cupcake. While we’re eating our lunch, I rub my hand gently over the cover of the journal.
I doubt I’ll write in it. At least, I know if I do, I can’t write as freely as I once did. But like the feelings he stirs, it reminds me of a time before all this, when this house felt like the entire world, not a prison.
*
“You gonna touch your roast beef?” Simon asks as he slices into his steak, red juice leaking onto his mashed potatoes. “Nell worked hard for two dinners. Don’t be rude.” He knifes some potatoes onto the piece of steak before slipping it into his mouth.
He’s right. Nell bends over backward to make our birthday meal, so I can’t be ungrateful.
It just sucks because I’d rather be sitting with Jonas in the little, dingy staff dining area than be sitting here in the far more opulent dining room, at Father’s marble table with my brother.
Simon’s updated most of the artwork to more abstract pieces, but I can still remember the landscapes Father used to keep on the walls and the iron-welded statues around the space that seemed too eerie to us as kids. But more than the pieces, I remember fragments of moments of joy. Kieran cracking playful jokes. He was so charming. So witty. So clever.
“Come on,” Simon presses.
I force myself to fork a slice of the roast beef and slip it into my mouth.
His jaw tenses up as he glares at me. “That’s not how you like it,” he says through gritted teeth.
There’s the rage in him, the monster he’s become.
“Maybe I want to eat it like this tonight,” I say, and knowing it bothers him encourages me to take another bite.
“Stop it, Ryan. You don’t like it like that. You know I know that, and you know this is bothering me, so just do it the way you like.”
“You’re not Father.”
I don’t have to look at him. I can easily imagine the flash of rage.
He clearly took it as the assault I intended because when I go for another bite, he snatches my plate away from me. Setting it beside his, he mixes the beef and mashed potatoes before grabbing the pepper. He grinds it over my roast beef, then adds a dash of salt. The tension in his expression doesn’t let up until he sets my plate back down in front of me.
“There. Now eat.”
This is my favorite meal, but he’s managed to spoil it.
“Just fucking eat it,” Simon says, showing his teeth as he bashes his fists onto the table. He’s acting like a child, but the low octave of his voice reminds me that we’re not kids, and this isn’t the sort of fight adults should be engaged in.
I shouldn’t eat it. I should make him suffer watching me like this, but if I do that, I’m only prolonging this farce of a dinner, so I submit, hating myself as I take the roast into my mouth. But damn, he knows me, because he fixed it just right. Fuck if I don’t despise him for that too.
I savor the tender roast, how the mashed potatoes move around my mouth as I chew, and when I swallow, he sighs. He wears a familiar expression, like when he’s finished during more intimate moments. There’s a release, and as always, I’m left wondering why he’s so obsessed with my choices, my life.
We both enjoy our meal, and then he lights the candles on the cake Nell set out on the table.
It’s a chocolate Oreo ice cream cake. His favorite. He sings “Happy Birthday,” not needing my participation, since I never really sang it when we were kids, then pressures me into blowing the candles out with him. It’s all part of the ritual, and I play my part, cutting our slices and placing them on dessert plates before handing one to Simon and taking the other for myself.
“You know what this means…” he says, as though there could be any suspense when we both know how the evening will play out. He retrieves a wrapped package from a bag he’d brought with him to dinner, and passes it to me.
A narrow, rectangular shape. Not sure what it could be.
I grab the present I got him and slide it to him. He takes it, grinning as he shakes it, and says, “Shoes?” He unwraps it quickly. “Oh, just like the ones on my Amazon Wish List. Wasn’t that thoughtful of me to put something on there you could afford?” He winks, but then says, “Oh, come on, Ry. You know I’m only teasing. Now hurry. I want you to open yours. I want you to see how thoughtful I am.”